London-Woche der 4AHMBZ

As annually planned, the 4th year automotive engineering English class flew for five days on a language based trip to London along with our class teacher Mrs. Losbichler and our English teacher Ms. Aiglstorfer. Our travels started on Sunday, June 19th where we met in Steyr and took the train to the Vienna International Airport. After a stress-free flight, we got to the beautiful Wombat’s Hostel and decided to relax on Sunday night and begin with our sightseeing tours on Monday morning. We were relieved to see that our hostel was very clean, professional and right in the middle of London.

Starting at 8am we had a guided tour of the Tower Bridge where we had a beautiful view of London and the buildings surrounding the Thames River. As this tour only lasted until noon, we then had the chance to split up into groups and walk the London streets. Each group chose one of the five planned sightseeing routes made by our teachers. Included in these tours were almost every famous landmark worth seeing, such as Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Harrods Shopping Center, Trafalgar Square, and many more. Due to the fact that London is impressively huge, we also used the great weather on Tuesday to explore the city in groups. Some of us also enjoyed a tour through Stamford Bridge, the home of the Chelsea football team, and through the famous Wembley Stadium.

Thanks to our head of department DI Benedetto and his contact with Mr. Martin­­­ Kogler we were able to tour the Renault Sport factory in ­­­­Enstone, Oxford where they develop the Renault Formula 1 racecars. There we got to see how the different chassis parts are produced and how much design and construction goes into building such a vehicle. The highlight of the tour was certainly when we got to watch the F1 pit stop team practice their tasks on a real car. Our bus driver then drove us to Oxford Campus where we could take a sneak peek into Christ Church College. This place is famous for being used as the gothic backdrop of many Harry Potter films. After getting back to our hostel we celebrated our class colleagues’ birthdays by cooking for everyone and eating together.

On our last full day (Thursday) we decided to be typical tourists and take a ride on the renowned Ferris wheel, the London Eye. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t the best but we still got to see the city of London through the fog and were amazed at the size and complexity of the city.

Having arrived back home safe and sound, we can look back to a wonderful week full of memorable impressions and can highly recommend the trip to our succeeding class.